Matthew Macfadyen’s 8-Part James Bond Replacement Officially Gets First Look

John le Carré‘s most famous creation is headed back to the screen for the first time in fifteen years. George Smiley, the dutiful intelligence operative of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and many more, will appear in Legacy of Spies, a new series on MGM+. Matthew Macfadyen (Succession) will star as the new Smiley in the series, and now we have our first look at him as the series wraps up filming.

Smiley first appeared in Call for the Dead, the first novel by le Carré (whose real name was David Cornwell), and went on to appear in many of his subsequent books; unassuming and unglamorous, Smiley was the antithesis of spies like James Bond, but le Carré never portrayed him as anything but competent, dedicated, and occasionally completely ruthless. Smiley has been depicted a number of times on screen by a variety of acclaimed actors, including James Mason, Alec Guinness, and Gary Oldman.

Now, it’s Macfadyen’s turn to portray Smiley in Legacy of Spies, as seen in new images released by MGM+. He certainly looks the part, with Smiley’s off-the-rack Cold War-era suits and unfashionable glasses. Legacy of Spies, although it shares its title with le Carré’s final Smiley novel, will adapt a number of his books, including The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Smiley plays a supporting role in that book, while Alec Leamas takes the lead; he’s a British agent who’s sent to East Germany to pose as a defector, with the aim of sowing disinformation. We also have our first look at the world-weary Leamas, who will be played by Charlie Hunnam. Hunnam has big shoes to fill, as Richard Burton played the character in the 1965 film adaptation of the novel.

Collider Exclusive · James Bond Personality Quiz
Which James Bond Actor Are You Most Like?
Connery · Moore · Dalton · Brosnan · Lazenby · Craig

Six actors. Six completely different visions of the same man — dangerous, charming, complicated, and almost certainly wearing a very good suit. Only one of them shares your particular way of moving through the world. Eight questions will figure out which Bond you really are.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Connery

😄Moore

🎭Dalton

✨Brosnan

🤵Lazenby

💠Craig

FIND YOUR BOND →

How do you carry yourself when you walk into a room?
Bond is always the most interesting person in the room. The question is how he makes you feel it.

AWith absolute authority — I don’t announce myself. I simply make everyone aware that I’ve arrived.
BWith a raised eyebrow and a ready quip — I’d rather disarm a room than dominate it.
CWith focused intensity — I’m taking everything in, and people can tell.
DWith polish and ease — I look like I belong everywhere, because I’ve decided I do.
EWith quiet confidence — I’m still figuring out my place, but I carry myself as if I already know it.
FWith guarded stillness — I notice everything and give nothing away until I choose to.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you handle a dangerous situation?
Every Bond faces it differently. What does your version look like?

AWith dangerous calm — I’ve been here before, and the threat already knows it’s made a mistake.
BWith improvisation and a degree of theatrical flair — tension should never be wasted.
CHead-on and without hesitation — I don’t need gadgets. I have training, and I use it.
DWith the right tool for the job — I came prepared, and preparation is its own form of confidence.
EInstinctively — I react faster than I think, and it usually works out.
FWith controlled brutality — I don’t enjoy it, but I don’t flinch from what the moment requires.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you charm someone you need on your side?
Bond always gets what he needs. The method varies considerably.

AI make them feel like the most interesting person in the room — for exactly as long as I need them to be.
BI make them laugh — a shared laugh is the fastest way to make someone trust you.
CI’m direct and honest — I tell them what I need and why. Manipulation wastes time.
DWith surface perfection — the right words, the right smile, deployed with enough precision to look effortless.
EBy being present and genuine — I’m still developing my technique, but sincerity covers a lot of ground.
FReluctantly and sparingly — I’d rather earn trust through actions than manufacture it through charm.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you handle your emotions on the job?
Every Bond deals with this differently. Most of them not particularly well.

AI suppress them completely — detachment is a professional requirement, not a personal failing.
BI deflect with humour — a well-timed joke is the best defence against genuine feeling.
CI let them show — I’m not ashamed of feeling things, and I think pretending not to is its own kind of weakness.
DI compartmentalise with precision — everything in its place, nothing bleeding into the mission.
EWith difficulty — I haven’t quite worked out the system yet, and sometimes it shows.
FBy burying them — deeply, imperfectly, in ways that eventually cost me something important.

NEXT QUESTION →

How would your colleagues describe your working style?
MI6 has opinions about all of its 00s. What are theirs about you?

AEffective and uncompromising — results-focused to the point where the methods occasionally become a concern.
BReliably brilliant in the field, occasionally exasperating in the briefing room.
CPrincipled to a fault — they’d rather do it right than do it fast, and they’ll tell you so.
DPolished, capable, and slightly too good at making it look easy.
ERaw potential — still developing, but there’s something there that’s hard to teach.
FA weapon. Pointed at problems, usually effective, occasionally unpredictable.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about operating within the rules?
The licence to kill comes with terms and conditions. Not everyone reads them.

ARules are for people who haven’t earned the judgement to know when to break them.
BI follow them in spirit and bend them in practice — the important thing is the outcome.
CI take them seriously — there are things I won’t do regardless of what the mission requires.
DI work within them effectively and creatively — the system has its uses if you know how to navigate it.
EI’m still working out where my lines are — the job has a way of moving them on you.
FI follow orders until I decide the order is wrong. Then I act on my own judgement and accept the consequences.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is your relationship with love?
Every Bond has a different answer. None of them have found it easy.

AA liability I’ve learned to manage — I don’t let it interfere with the work, and I try not to examine why.
BA pleasure I take seriously in the moment, lightly in the long term, and honestly in between.
CSomething I want genuinely — and struggle to reconcile with the life I’ve chosen.
DPart of the performance — I’m charming, and I enjoy it, but I keep the door to anything deeper firmly closed.
ESomething that surprised me — I found it when I wasn’t looking and it changed everything, briefly.
FA wound I carry — something happened, and I haven’t fully processed what it means for everything since.

NEXT QUESTION →

When the mission is over, how do you want to be remembered?
The name is Bond. The rest is entirely up to the man behind it.

AAs the original — the one who defined what this could be before anyone else knew what it was.
BAs someone who made it enjoyable — who understood that entertainment is its own kind of excellence.
CAs someone who took it seriously — who refused to coast and pushed harder than the role required.
DAs the complete package — who had the looks, the timing, and the ability to make it all seem inevitable.
EAs an underrated chapter — one that deserved more time and more credit than it received.
FAs the one who made it human — who found the cost beneath the cool and didn’t look away from it.

REVEAL MY BOND →

The Name Has Been Determined
Your Bond Is…

Six actors. One role. Your answers point to the Bond who shares your presence, your method, and your particular way of carrying the weight of being the most dangerous person in the room.

Dr. No — You Only Live Twice · 1962–1967

Sean Connery

You are the original — and you carry that fact without needing to announce it. There is an authority in the way you occupy a room that others spend careers trying to replicate.

You don’t explain yourself, justify yourself, or soften yourself for anyone’s comfort. The confidence is structural, not performed.
Connery’s Bond established everything — the tone, the danger, the cool — because Connery himself had the innate presence to make something that had never existed feel inevitable.
You share that quality: the sense that you were always going to end up exactly here, doing exactly this.
The name is Bond. In your case, it always was.

Live and Let Die — A View to a Kill · 1973–1985

Roger Moore

You understand something that more serious people miss: that wit is its own form of intelligence, and that making people laugh is not a retreat from danger but a way of mastering it.

Moore’s Bond is underrated precisely because the effortlessness looks easy — and effortlessness is the hardest thing to manufacture.
You have the same quality: a lightness that disarms people before they realise how sharp you actually are.
The raised eyebrow, the perfectly timed quip, the refusal to be rattled — these are not affectations. They are a philosophy about how to move through a world that would like to take itself too seriously.
You have never let it.

The Living Daylights · Licence to Kill · 1987–1989

Timothy Dalton

You took the role seriously when everyone wanted you to coast — and that refusal to take the easy version of anything is the most defining thing about you.

Dalton’s Bond has genuine moral weight: he feels the cost of what he does, he has lines he won’t cross, and he is not interested in the version of himself that pretends otherwise.
You share that intensity. You push harder than the situation technically requires, because you have a standard and you hold yourself to it.
He was ahead of his time — the Bond the franchise wasn’t quite ready for yet, arriving exactly when he was meant to.
You know what that feels like.

GoldenEye — Die Another Day · 1995–2002

Pierce Brosnan

You are the complete package — and you know it, which is part of what makes you so effective and occasionally so infuriating to the people around you.

Brosnan arrived at the role looking exactly like Bond was supposed to look, and he delivered on that expectation with a professionalism that made it seem effortless.
You have the same quality: a smooth competence, a charm that operates like a precision instrument, and the ability to make even difficult things look like they weren’t.
His era was the most commercially successful in the franchise’s history. There is a reason for that.
The reason is that some people simply fit their moment perfectly. You are one of those people.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service · 1969

George Lazenby

You stepped into something enormous with less preparation than anyone around you thought was sufficient — and you delivered something genuine anyway, which is the more impressive achievement.

Lazenby’s single outing is, by many measures, one of the finest Bond films ever made — and he is not a small part of why.
You share his quality of raw authenticity: less polished than the alternatives, more honest for it, capable of something real that technique alone can’t produce.
He was underestimated, and then he wasn’t, and then history caught up with him.
You are the kind of person history catches up with. Give it time.

Casino Royale — No Time to Die · 2006–2021

Daniel Craig

You stripped everything back and found what was underneath — and what was underneath was harder, more honest, and more human than anyone expected.

Craig’s Bond is the franchise’s most psychologically complete: a man doing a brutal job, carrying its costs imperfectly, capable of love and loss in ways that can’t be dismissed.
You share that depth. You don’t hide behind the role or the charm or the suit — you let the work show what it actually costs.
He was controversial from the moment he was announced and definitive by the time he was finished. The sceptics became the believers.
That arc — of being underestimated and then undeniable — is one you know intimately.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Who Else Stars in ‘Legacy of Spies’?

In addition to Macfadyen and Hunnam, Legacy of Spies boasts an impressive cast. It also stars Daniel Brühl (Captain America: Civil War), Devrim Lingnau Islamoğlu (The Empress), Agnes O’Casey (Star City), Felix Kammerer (Frankenstein), Dan Stevens (Onslaught), Jake Dunn (My Brilliant Career), Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts), Charlotte Ritchie (Legends), Joe Alwyn (Hamnet), and Hugh Laurie (House).

Legacy of Spies has completed filming, and will premiere exclusively on MGM+; no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.